When Luthien woke his skin was the color of flat sand on a starless evening. What the hell happened last night? He sees a sky not quite black. The moon, a shredded toenail hanging on a milky weave. Leftover sensations of tepid glass–thick tumbler, lazy ice.

Last evening he stopped on his way home. Between shots of Jack Daniels, Luthien remembers a powerful mouth. In the small bar–a big woman whose billowing lips could suck the enamel off teeth. What did he do? Did that insane mouth hoover the color from his body? Luthien’s fair skin that goes lobster belly pink on the beach is now dull grey. Was he vacuumed dry? Luthien hopes he’ll wake and find his skin its proper shade. But Luthien you are grey. Too bad.

Nervously he squeezes his eyelids shut. Shelby and her tears. She’d found him and Cassandra porn-style in ‘their’ bed. So what if he and Shelby picked out the duvet with coordinating sheets. The woman in the bar had lips like clamps–tight and hot. Big, deep red wet lips. Did he hear a name from that strange sucking mouth? Martianna, Maliana, Marvianna? A sentence slithers into his ear. A velvet tongue like he’s never tasted in thirty-eight years. Translucent hands pulling his hair so hard his head whacks the bar wall and he doesn’t give a shit. Her surreal mouth, a serpentine force plundering his desperate throat. Did that burgundy wet nurse utter something to his bourboned-out body?

Think Luthien. You almost talked Shelby out of leaving post-Cassandra fuck. The name. It will be important. Take a moment. Go through the minutes after her lips sucked your dick through your throat. Those red lips whispered something.

“When a heart is shattered, its pieces fall to earth. Tears of pain water and grows the blood rose that springs forth the serpent that feeds on the rat.”

The bedroom clock screams. Luthien wakes to the sun’s rays slithering past his silk curtains. His mane of hair, dripping sweat, soaking the grey cotton sheets. Saturday morning. Shelby would have slapped the alarm off then woken him with a tender kiss. They used to make love on Saturdays.

Love writing flash fiction, especially monster-themed. I let loose a bit more when invoking character voices. Hope you enjoy, leftover sensations, as much as I enjoyed writing it 😘
As the writing gods sometimes align themselves, my dear, faraway writing friend, DS Levy also in this issue with a masterful short, Pit Viper.
adore this cover art by Aisha Ali!

I have conspired with a literary den-of-thieves to make you desire Them
To entwine your soul in Their stronghold of rampant lust and brute strength
Inescapable wide-eyed innocence will burn away the layers of mistrust
One decadent love bite to draw out your pulsing demons–
those that made your flesh crawl and quiver, long before They arrived
By high mindedness of the amber moon chained by gravity–
I call to sisters across ocean and earth
Fly beyond otherworldly barriers–
keep your diaphanous forms from heaving bound werewolves
I summon, for both your sake and mine
You see, they were born of necessity and likened to mankind’s crucible–
monsters, beasts, leviathans, introverts, extroverts, banshees
Welcome Their rounded limbs to engorge your body with Godlike fear
Wretch you will, over and again until there is nothing to the insides
but your blood
As Her beautiful teeth impale your flesh, you float among the stars
You collapse, the agony of life fades into a dull memory
The tide eventually finds you and we float into the universe
Aren’t they worth dying for…

Well, what can I say? My moment of truth has arrived. Come mid-December, my first book filled with my heart and dreams will be out there orbiting reader-land. I can only hope it will alight upon many a curious traveler. I honestly don’t know how love of the monster will be received. I’ve created a little book (spine is just shy of 1/4″) filled with big monsters. The monsters are paired with love poems that I think best represent their personalities. So I have these passionate words married to fearsome images, other times, the images are not so fearsome, maybe a smiling, pretty ‘vampiress.’ So it’s anyone’s guess if my little book will have any bite;) At the very least it will be an interesting experiment for my off-kilter sense of humor and love of all things monster. And now I must practice what I preach. I must be as brave as I’ve taught my children to be.
Here goes…my exceptionally talented sister-in-art, Grace Roselli took my author photo

My imagination often tortures me. Does yours get the better of you? When I was ten, The Blob (trivia-Steve McQueen’s first leading role), gave me the night sweats for an entire year and I wouldn’t venture near anything resembling a vent. Next it was Goya who tormented me with his painting, Saturn Devouring His Son. A father eating a child does things to a twelve-year-old’s mind. For quite some time, I stayed away from utensils and my dad. Even a can of peas and carrots had its way with me. A reoccurring nightmare at age fourteen–cubed carrots screaming as they were mercilessly squashed by brutal farmers wielding cast iron shovels, while the opportunistic peas rolled away to safety.

Today, (as I sit in my sub studio watching leggy spiders flutter by like creeping creative angels) imagination helps sometimes but not always. Brain shit rattles around like the crap I might throw up in my attic or shove into some dark basement corner. Emptying mind bins of mildewed magazines that smell worse than the son’s wrestling singlet after a dual meet is futile. Piles accumulate with no end in sight. Most of this junk is unusable and will be thrown onto a flimsy folding table for a grand going-out-of-business sale. This is my writing process. This is my art process. This is what I do. Peas rolling away to safety. When fingers get boxed-in, ideas flatten beneath cast iron shovels.

There is also something else my imagination does. This is the worst part of all. It self-inflicts pain whenever I mind-travel to places I should never go with people I should never go with. Sometimes, I disregard my sadistic demons to ride bareback on the gorgeous, powerful Percherons there. Magnificent beasts that galloped off Bonheur’s painting, The Horse Fair. Year by year, my dark matter loosens a bit more. Nights now mimic spaceflight. I survive by staying awake. If I don’t sleep while dreaming, I can’t get into any trouble. When I misbehave, the spiders stop hanging with me. They always know my truth. And without these creeping creative angles, my imagination might just get too strong a foothold. If this happens, I’ll never be able to find my way back. The spiders know one more lousy truth about me. My sense of direction absolutely sucks.

meAnnneed the MarieAnn not long enoughfor my heightlike a lineyou might let looseand watch it growinto a friendwho you can nameafter a chat revealsher head wantsand heart desiresher name isMeAnnderInglineMeAnn der Ingline born while waiting in a waiting room

little witch babies and tormenting black skies gusting wind
long dark dresses swinging like death bells a frail newborn with antlers growingcrying out as it tries to lift its weak neck ocean-deep in salted sweat those early months

panicking…

a pink infant
without bony deciduous growth
or skull-sunken cheeks
seventeen Halloween moons gone by since,
those first seconds
one more fall harvest
until her
perfect little face departs

dreaming…

scary baby mask, mixed media rendered a few weeks back…
the first time I was pregnant: during the first trimester, I had many bizarre dreams–some were nightmarish, others surreal like Dali paintings…my oldest is now 17 and college planning is on, lots of positive dreaming 🙂